With funds and goodwill, moving swiftly from humanitarian relief work to lasting development would appear straightforward.

Yet time and again, from the South East Asian tsunami to the Haiti earthquake, the opposite has proved the case.

How can survivors move from living on aid agency hand-outs to rebuilding their lives long after the TV camera crews have gone home?

All too often, a major disaster tears up the script on development in a country – creating a whole new landscape. It often means overburdened government resources are redirected to relief efforts, at the expense of development work. So how do we pick up where we left off?

A report for the European Commission, a major development donor, emphasised that: "Better development could reduce the need for relief, better relief could contribute to development and that the transition between the two is facilitated by rehabilitation."

Those involved in rebuilding countries post-disaster must consider what will work long-term in any given environment – one size never fits all.

Otherwise, there is a risk that many rehabilitation efforts may prove ultimately ineffective and unsustainable.

"Programming that genuinely links relief, rehabilitation and development is not a matter of agencies becoming better at 'doing livelihoods' or even building houses," says the Active Learning Network for Accountability and Performance in Humanitarian Action (ALNAP).

So how can different aid actors combine to maximise the impact of their limited resources on survivors post-disaster? Are there different requirements depending on type of emergency? What aid should be delivered and how? How do we fully engage beneficiaries to maximise their own long-term recovery? What role does Disaster Risk Reduction work play?